


Wheel of Westeros Book One: Rise of Jon Part Three

by Thrafrau (annmcbee)



Series: Wheel of Westeros [13]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode: s06e09 Battle of the Bastards, F/M, Werewolf Jon Snow, Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22727575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annmcbee/pseuds/Thrafrau
Summary: Jon and Sansa fight to take back their ancestral home of Winterfell. Jon and Val work through their feelings for one another. Stannis witnesses the taking of a sacred vow before departing a castle in shambles.
Relationships: Harrold Hardyng/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Val, Long Haul Jon/Daenerys, Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark, Stannis Baratheon/Jon Snow
Series: Wheel of Westeros [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1458574
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Wheel of Westeros Book One: Rise of Jon Part Three

**_The Wheel of Westeros_ **

**Book One: Rise of Jon Part Three**

_Disclaimer:_

_This fan fiction is meant neither to be a continuation of George R. R. Martin’s_ A Song of Ice and Fire _series, nor a revision of seasons 6-8 of the HBO series,_ Game of Thrones _. It is meant to stand alone, independent of those works, and can be read alone by those who have not seen the TV series or read the books. Having said that, this work will borrow from not only_ Game of Thrones _and_ A Song of Ice and Fire, _but from multiple other works of film, television, music and literature. Please see footnotes for references, and feel free to point out any I’ve forgotten._

Chapter 1: The Black Bastard

Jon approached Val’s tent cautiously, as he could never know what to expect. Wun-Wun was asleep at the door, no longer obligated to guard as closely as he had when Selyse’s men and the Night’s Watch had been an issue. Jon’s Freefolk warriors knew better, and Stannis’s men faced gelding if they tried anything. Jon announced himself and waited. _Come_ , she called out, and Jon took a breath and drew back the flap, plucking the big black bird he had named “King” from his shoulder and allowing him to perch on Wun-Wun’s massive head. Val was fletching arrows at the end of her bedroll, legs crossed in front of her. She had insisted on joining the fighting, in spite of the objections of Stannis and some of his men. Jon often found himself acting as a kind of ambassador, as it had been difficult for Stannis and his army (which included the Manderlys of the North and thousands of sellswords) and Jon’s Freefolk fighters to communicate without some misunderstanding. Freefolk women fought beside their men, a notion Jon thought his own countrymen might benefit from, especially if they meant to defend themselves against the Others and their army.

Val smiled at him. The pile of arrows she was working on was rather large.

“Do you plan to sleep tonight, my lady?” Jon asked.

“I’ll sleep when I’m tired,” said Val.

“Are you afraid?”

“If not I’d be a fool, wouldn’t I?”

“That’s so...”

“Come,” Val said, patting the space beside her on the bedroll. “Sit with me.”

Jon hesitated for only a brief moment before doing as she bid him. Her smell filled his nostrils, tinged this time with a briny hint of nervous sweat. She _was_ afraid, and rightly so. Even with Stannis and his army, they couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t be outmatched. Scouts had reported that some Northern houses had declared for Roose Bolton, either out of fear or out of disdain for Robb’s decisions as King. Jon had formed a party in order to attempt an ambush inside the castle that would take out Roose or Ramsay or both before they marched, consisting of himself, Satin Flowers, Tormund Giantsbane and his sons, Ser Davos Seaworth, and Val. A signal would alert King – no _Prince_ Stannis, Devan Seaworth, and the army to advance. Thankfully, they would have Ghost the Direwolf, Wun-Wun, and Borroq the Boar as well.

“I meant to speak to you the other night,” Jon said to Val. He sat with his knees up and his arms resting upon them, facing her. “Obviously I didn’t. But…well, we might die before the sun sets tomorrow, so…”

Val stopped fletching and put an arrow down in her lap. “Why didn’t you take me that night? What stopped you?”

Jon looked down. Two nights past, they had camped beside the White Knife. Jon hadn’t been able to sleep, for the moon was nearly full. Ser Davos was out walking as he often did, so Jon went with him, following along the river. It had been a comfort to talk to the old smuggler-turned-knight about what had happened at the Wall, because Davos followed neither the Red God nor the Old Gods, and wasn’t trying to assign Jon to the service of either, unlike Tormund and Stannis. When they had finally said goodnight and Jon went to his tent, he had passed Val’s on the way.

Wun-Wun had been in a deep sleep, and a wind had blown the flap slightly open. There was a sound of dripping water and cloth sliding over skin, and the scent that came with it – forest flowers, soft sand and woman’s hair – stopped Jon in his tracks. In spite of himself, Jon had walked over and very quietly pulled back the flap without invitation. There had stood Val, bare from the waist up, giving herself a bath in a basin full of scented water that steamed in the cool of the night. Her skin glowed pink through the steam, and it shone from the water she squeezed over her back. Jon was transfixed by the muscles of her shoulders and the indentation of her spine leading to just a hint of cleft that peeked out from the furs around her hips – her full, voluptuous hips. Val had looked up and turned around, and Jon had expected her to grab her spear and throw it into his heart, but he did not move. Val said no words as his eyes met with hers. Her golden hair was unbraided and fell over one shoulder, revealing only the one breast. Seeing Jon looking at her, she brushed the hair back. Her breasts were firm and round, the nipples puckering in the chill, a line of bubbly water falling between them. They stared at each other for a moment, Val expectant, Jon’s mouth filling with saliva. He grew erect, and took a step forward. Val had dropped the cloth into the basin behind her and widened her stance. Then Jon had turned, and walked out of the tent.

“My lady,” Jon said, forcing himself to look into Val’s eyes. “If I would have gone into you, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. There are things I have trouble controlling … now…”[1]

“Nor would I have been able to stop you. You’re stronger than I am. That’s the point.”

“Val…the ways of the Freefolk are not my ways…”

Among the Freefolk, for a man to marry a woman like Val, he had to take her. If he managed to do so without dying, or losing one or both testicles, then she was his. If she gave herself willingly, the man would not have been tested properly. But his father had taught Jon and his brothers that to take a woman against her will was one of the most vile dishonors a man can commit. A lady was to be protected and treated with respect, not defiled and forced to give her maidenhood to a man not her husband.

“It’s only a test, Jon Snow. It’s not what you think,” Val said.

“Suppose I had hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“My lady…” Jon turned to her and placed a hand on her cheek. “If I take you into my bed, it will be because you gave yourself to me of your own will, preferably as my wife. That’s the way it has to be.”

Val leaned in close, her breath warming his lips. She touched the scratches on his left cheek, made by Rickon, who hadn’t taken it well when he’d been placed on a ship to Bear Island with Osha. Jon’s promises to see him again soon hadn’t comforted his little brother, who had howled and clawed wildly at his face as Jon wept and tried to give him one last hug. He couldn’t blame Rickon. Each time his family members had left him, they hadn’t returned soon. His mother and his father and Robb never would – maybe Jon never would either. At least his wolf, Shaggy Dog, had gone with him.

“You’re very kind, aren’t you?” Val said softly, running a finger over each red mark.

“I try to be.”

“How has that worked out for you…being kind?”[2]

Jon didn’t have an answer for that, and Val didn’t wait for one.

“You love your family,” she said. “Your men, too. I see it. Even the crippled one…and the whore. You love them.”

“Why should it matter that Bran is crippled? What Satin was before…that means nothing to me. They are who they are…why love them less?”

“Because the Gods love them less, and you are of the Gods…”

“I’m not!” John scowled. He had disliked Val’s attitude toward Shireen Baratheon and her greyscale scars too. It was unkind…but it was also true that kindness hadn’t yielded much for Jon. He resented Val a little for pointing it out.

“Val,” he said. “If you know something about why I came back I want you to tell me. _Right now_.”

Val didn’t flinch at his raised voice. She paused and seemed to peer into his eyes, looking for her own reflection there, as she was wont to do. “If I told you I wanted you inside me with all my being, would that change your mind?”

“Do you?” Jon asked.

“If you don’t know, I’m not the one to tell you.”

Jon closed his eyes and turned away from her. He loved her, he knew. There was no way around it. It was more than her beauty, which was hypnotic to be sure. She not only reminded him of his deceased lover Ygritte, but of his little sister Arya, of Sansa, and Lady Catelyn. She was fierce and willful, and a little bit cruel, but she held herself with pride and dignity. She was fearless, even as she could be gentle. She was everything he had ever imagined in a wife.

“Is there no other way I can earn your hand? Because I will not steal you, like some sow or a silver cup. I’ve no right. If the Gods say I do, then they aren’t my Gods…” _Who are my Gods, then,_ he thought.

“They are the Gods who brought you back.”

“How? Why? Tell me… _I command you to tell me.”_ Jon clutched her arm firmly and pulled her closer to him, then thought better of it and released her. Val was unfazed.

“Find the Horn of Winter and bring down the Wall,” she whispered to him. “Then you may marry me in your way.”

“Val, if the Wall falls the Others will…”

“No…the ghosts trapped within the Wall will defeat them.”

“What ghosts?” He remembered Ygritte telling him that the ghosts of the First Men were trapped inside the Wall of ice that divided the civilized North from the North of the Freefolk. In her point of view, the Wall didn’t stop the evil…it _was_ the evil. Surely, she’d had it backwards…hadn’t she?

“You must not go across the sea, Jon Snow. The Dragon Queen is your doom. I know it.”

“I don’t care about my doom. If stopping the army of the dead means my death, again, then I welcome it…” He took her hand. “Be with me, Val. If I face my doom, I want you to know you are by my side.”

He leaned in and kissed her, first softly and slowly, then deeply and passionately, caressing her neck before lowering a hand to her breast. Then suddenly Val pulled away and slapped him hard across the face. She leaned back, resting on her palms behind her and unfolding her legs. Jon stared at her with longing, but sorrow and shame polluted his desire. He stood up and left the tent.

That night, Jon and Ghost hunted together, perhaps for the last time ever. When their hunger was sated, another longing plagued them. Ghost sprayed the low-hanging branches of a soldier pine, but he was far from any female with which he could rut. His sister wolf was closer – he felt her chasing the same need down near the Trident. Here near the White Knife, there was no hope of satisfying his urge. Instead, he followed another scent. One of decay, a pungent, carrion-like odor. The scent led him to an ancient sentinel at the edge of the tundra on which Winterfell sat. A gibbet hung from a heavy branch, and in the cage, a figure twitched and hissed, but whether the sound was just the wind chatting with pine needles, he couldn’t discern. As he grew close enough, he realized it was both, and mixed with the low sound of pain. The thing dangling from the bottom of the cage was alive, barely, and had at one time been a man. Frostbite and the crows had eaten away at much of him, as he had at one point eaten away at his blanket. His teeth marks made disturbing patterns in the fabric – but this blanket was not made of any fabric women could weave. It was sewn together in large pieces, the smell of which reminded Ghost and Jon of dried horsemeat at the end of a long ranging. The smell of the dangling skeleton was also too familiar. It was the smell of Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall. The blanket was the skin of six spearwives he had taken with him to Winterfell. The full moon said, angrily, _it is so…your king dies again. You have failed._ Ghost sat on his haunches and howled and howled and howled.

Chapter 2: Sansa

Sansa sat atop her horse at the edge of the Wolfswood, overlooking the field of battle. Beside her were Petyr, her uncle Brynden the Blackfish, and Nestor Royce, who would protect her in the event that the battle did not go well. Heading up the vanguard would be her husband Harrold Hardyng, Howland Reed, Maege Mormont and the chiefs of the Mountain clans. These, disappointingly, were the only Northern lords who agreed to fight for her despite the confirmation of her identity as a true Stark by the Blackfish. Other than the Reeds, the Mormonts and the clans, they all seemed convinced that she could still be an imposter, despite her brilliant auburn hair and Brynden’s insistence that she was the very picture of her mother. The Ryswells, the Umbers, and the Karstarks had even gone so far as to declare for House Bolton, believing the Starks to be extinct.

Sansa could only hope she had enough men to defeat the Boltons and take back her ancestral home. Petyr Baelish had tried to convince her not to come to the battle, but she insisted. Let them tell her she wasn’t Sansa of House Stark. She would show those traitorous lords the Starks were not extinct. If the battle was lost, she would die a Stark, undeniably. They had parlayed with Ramsay the previous day, and the bastard had sworn that if he could not get her sister Arya back, he would happily kill Harrold and take Sansa for his wife instead. He of course demanded their surrender, and promised mercy, though somehow Sansa doubted he was capable of it. Ramsay Bolton was notorious for cruelty. He was also the most hideous man she had ever seen, with blue-almost-white eyes like a dead fish, and slimy red lips like two worms flapping against each other. _My dogs are desperate to meet you all,_ he had spat. _I haven’t fed them in seven days…they’re ravenous! I wonder which parts they’ll try first. Your eyes? Your balls? We’ll find out soon enough_![3]

Sansa’s lady Mya had smuggled her a dagger, no bigger than her finger but sharp, that she would use to slice open her own throat if the battle was lost and it came to her having to wed Ramsay Bolton. She would far rather die than give herself to the son of the man who had murdered her brother and mother. She had attached the hilt of the knife to a chain that she wore around her neck and tucked into her gown, which was grey-blue velvet with a full skirt and grey feathers trimming the hem. The gown also had feathers at the shoulder seams – in homage to House Arryn, and the smith at the Gates of the Moon had fashioned her a breastplate of shiny steel emblazoned with the direwolf sigil of House Stark. She wore a swirl of braids at the back of her head, leaving a fringe of auburn to flow down her back, just like her lady mother had always worn her hair.

When the Bolton army appeared, waving their banners featuring the grim flayed man, Sansa’s heart skipped several beats. It seemed larger than her army, and suddenly she felt terrible that she had actually wished for Harrold’s death. Harrold wasn’t the best battle commander, and it was possible that she would get her wish, but lose the Knights of the Vale along with numerous of her father’s bannermen in the bargain. The horns sounded, and Harrold rode around to Sansa to say goodbye. He kissed her sweetly and declared his love for her, and Sansa kissed him back with as much feeling as she could muster – the men were all watching them after all. However, as they rode forward, the sick feeling in her belly wasn’t necessarily over the thought of losing him. Petyr reached over and held her hand, which was all she would let him do lately. She didn’t know whether she should be angry at Petyr for arranging her marriage – perhaps he hadn’t known what kind of man Harrold was.

After she’d lost a handmaiden due to Harrold’s infidelity, almost lost _two_ actually, she’d refused to let him touch her for many weeks. He tried at first to win back her favor with gifts and sweet words and pathetic apology after pathetic apology, but Sansa’s rage would not abate. In the end, however, a husband had the last word with a wife no matter what he’d done – that was the way of things. Once his begging and sniveling proved ineffective, Harrold had gotten impatient waiting for Sansa to come back to his bed, and he had begun to force her. She’d gotten her share of bruises before surrendering, one of which was still visible in a certain light, just below her jaw. Yet Sansa refused to cry and beg, or to give in without a fight. She refused to make it easy for him, no matter the pain and blood. She had half a mind to give herself to Petyr out of spite, but so far, they had only kissed – and that was her only solace. Her only revenge.

Sansa had never seen a real battle up close. The stories she had read and been told as a girl did not begin to capture the horror and stupidity of it. Before long, bodies began to pile up – huge mountains of the dead, growing larger. The smell that drifted up, human shit and kicked-up earth, filled her with dread. The Blackfish was cursing loudly – Harrold had led the charge too soon and put them in a precarious position, all because of Ramsay’s threat to take her as his wife. Harrold had lost his temper, which of course was exactly what Ramsay wanted. _Arse…that bloody arse_ , Lord Royce grumbled. Soon, Sansa’s depleted army was trapped between a wall of bodies and a flank of Bolton soldiers, who encircled them with shields and spears. As they closed in on them, it soon became clear the fight had taken a turn for the hopeless. Her men were being squeezed into a smaller and smaller area, spears skewering them from the outside and pressing in.[4] She could hear their screams of terror growing impossibly loud even from the distance. Sansa couldn’t see if Harrold was alive – she had lost track of him – but they had lost so many!

“The fray is lost, damn it,” the Blackfish hissed, glaring hard at Petyr. “We never should have come!”

“Come my lady,” Petyr said at last. “Let us flee now!”

Then suddenly, a large army, or perhaps two, came charging out from the Wolfswood. Its cavalry strode forward, a blur of black armor, waving flags of gold decorated with a heart aflame. The ground troops were a mix of black steel and something other – strange to Sansa’s eyes. These men wore no metal – just thick furs and leather, and some wore what looked like bone. Sansa stared in awe, Petyr, Lord Royce and the Blackfish gaping silently beside her, as a giant boar – bigger than a bull – tore through the Bolton ranks alongside the men. And was that a _giant_ she saw? Running amidst normal men but twice their height and size? What else could it be? Sansa suddenly felt as if she had stepped into one of the stories told at night by old Nan, the family’s housekeeper and wet nurse for three generations, who had a taste for scaring the daylight of her charges. Then she spied a massive blob of white, moving swiftly among the ranks like a cloud in a windy sky. In its path, Bolton men were torn to bits and thrown aside like dolls. Could it possibly be? _A direwolf,_ Sansa whispered to herself. A white direwolf, larger than any she had ever even read about. It was at least as big as the boar. But how many albino direwolves were to be found south of the Wall? Could it truly be? _Could it be Jon Snow?_ Sansa’s heart leapt with hope that her half-brother had come to save their home.

The circle Ramsay’s army had formed soon crumbled and disappeared, freeing the knights within. Some of Bolton’s soldiers attempted to run once it was clear they had lost, to no avail. Ramsay was attempting to flee on foot, though he was closely followed by four men from the rescuing army. Should he make it to Winterfell, it could be a long time before they could get to him. They would have to lay siege to get to Roose Bolton as it was. The Blackfish kicked up his mount and rode forward, and Sansa followed. They made it to the outskirts of Winterfell, just as Ramsay was attempting to fire arrows into the four men – no, three men and a _woman_ – who had surrounded him. One of them, a tall man with short black hair in black leather, walked right into the flying arrows, catching them with his shield. With each arrow that struck, Sansa let out a whimper and covered her mouth to muffle it. Before Ramsay could nock a fourth arrow, the man in black strode forward and clubbed him across the forehead with the butt of the shield, knocking him to the ground. The armor the man wore was just like that which her father had worn, and his breastplate was in the style of the Starks’ men. It was Jon!

Her bastard brother leapt upon Ramsay’s body in a motion that reminded Sansa of the way a hound looked when it jumped on an intruder. He began to pound the Bolton bastard’s face with a gloved fist, over and over, the contact making a wet sound that soon began to sound like a crackle.[5] Sansa’s stomach turned over at the sound Ramsay made: a kind of gurgling, hissing noise. He stopped moving, with the exception of one leg that twitched slightly, and Jon Snow slowly rose, panting and staggering from the effort of crushing Ramsay’s face to a pulp. Sansa observed silently, along with Petyr, Royce and the Blackfish, who had ridden up beside her, as well as the three who had ridden up with Jon. They were a gigantic man in furs with wild red hair, a beautiful woman in white fur with a long, yellow braid, and a tall, lanky balding man with a stern look, whose shield bore the image of the burning heart with a crowned stag in the center. _Lord_ _Stannis?_ Sansa could hardly believe it. What was Stannis Baratheon, the Queen’s (other) rival for the Iron Throne, doing with Jon?

Jon caught the eyes of his companions for a moment, then without a word, reached under his armor beneath the belt. Turning back to Ramsay’s twitching body, he let loose a long stream of urine that steamed when it struck and splashed. Sansa felt her face go red. She looked away at anything her eyes could land on. Petyr and the Blackfish looked pensive – perhaps they wondered who Jon was – and Lord Royce looked absolutely appalled. He made a _tsk_ noise and muttered, _I never_. Stannis put his hands on his hips and frowned, looking ready to scold someone. The woman’s eyes widened, and the wild man grinned widely and chuckled. When Jon finally finished pissing, he leaned over and spat on Ramsay, who had stopped moving. Then he began to walk toward his fellows, stopping only when he caught a glimpse of Sansa, and their eyes met.

Sansa dismounted and gave Jon a careful look to be sure it was indeed him. He was quite a bit taller, but still slender and lithe as he had been as a boy. His hair was shorter, but the same color, as were his eyes: a dark-almost-black grey. He had the long face of her father. It was Jon Snow without a doubt. He was studying her as well. She wondered if she looked very different. She was in disguise for so long that there were times when she hadn’t been able to remember what Sansa Stark was supposed to look like, or who she was for that matter.

“Jon…” Sansa said, confirming the truth to her own mind.

Jon’s jaw dropped as he recognized her, and he began to stride toward her. She ran forward and fell into him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and squeezing hard. He held her very tight and reeled a little, almost losing his footing. She realized suddenly that Jon was covered in gore, and her pretty feathered gown would likely be ruined. She buried her face in his shoulder that smelled of sweat and dung and dirt, and laughed out loud like a fool.

Chapter 3: Jon

It was a few days after the siege ended when Jon finally allowed himself a real bath. The siege hadn’t lasted even a day, and now Lord Bolton sat locked in the kennels with his son’s dogs. The scouting party had discovered the Knights of the Vale and some Northern troops on the march less than a half day’s ride ahead of them. It didn’t take much for Jon to put together that his sister Sansa was alive and wed to the Vale. After the battle, Harrold Hardyng had been grateful enough and lordly, but Jon smelled something off when Sansa introduced them. Even through the smell of shit, earth, soot and blood from the field of battle, he had sensed a lack of love from Sansa’s end, and he had spied a bruise on her face as well. There was something even more off about Petyr Baelish, but Jon hadn’t taken time to puzzle over it. He had a sister again, and they were about to have their home back at last, after everything their family had been through.

The genius of Winterfell’s placement was the hot springs that ran underneath it, keeping it considerably warm even as the winter grew colder. It meant water could be warmed for a bath more quickly and more often. Satin had remarked at the miracle of it as he prepared Jon’s tub for his first real bath since he’d been murdered. When he had found himself resurrected naked in the snow that night, he had been as clean as a bride-to-be. Since then, especially in the battle, he had accumulated a layer of grime so thick and pungent that just a sponging off wouldn’t do, and his steward insisted it was time. With some effort, Jon and Satin had managed to locate a lump of soap and a rag, but in the process had made some grim discoveries about the state of the castle. Theon Greyjoy might have done some of the damage, but the majority of the burning was done by Ramsay, who had burned almost everything to cinders. Everyone who had once kept the place in order – Mickon the armorer, Nan, the cooks, the carpenters, the stable boys, scullions – all had either been killed or fled. Some of the laborers who hadn’t escaped had been beaten and raped multiple times, their faces empty and distant as they held together what semblance of survival they could. Many who had been so mistreated acted as if Jon must have been sent by the Old Gods themselves, and Jon made sure to keep Satin or any of the other men from pointing out how close to the truth that might be. _Tell none of our smallfolk about the murder_ , he had said. _It will frighten them._

Worst of all, Ramsay had managed to go through five years worth of food, ale and provisions in just the time he’d been there. Not only was there not enough for the coming winter…they wouldn’t survive on what was left for more than a year, maybe two. Jon felt sick and wept openly, despite Stannis’s admonishment. _Come now, Snow. Get hold of yourself…the smallfolk are watching and so is your father_ , he said, though he too was pale with shock. _Go on and get your bath,_ Davos had said. _We’ll think of something._ Stannis directly had Ramsay’s decaying body hung low before the gates, inviting whoever wished it to toss rocks or swing at it with whatever they had at their disposal. He ordered the dogs in the kennels released as well, and having been starved for seven days, they made a hasty meal of Lord Roose Bolton.

Jon washed and rinsed his short hair first with Satin’s help, then sent the young steward to scare him up some ale or wine. He badly needed a drink. He was in the same room he’d slept in throughout his boyhood. Father and Catelyn’s room was for Sansa and Harrold. They would furnish a new Lord’s chamber for Bran on the first floor, since going up and down stairs was impossible for him. Taking a bath there reminded Jon of when he was little, and Nan would bathe him while telling grisly stories about winter. The skin of her hands had been so very, very thin. Despite the unreasonable vigor with which she scrubbed, it had always felt wonderful. When Satin had gone for some ale, Jon began to sob again, inciting his bird King to squawk _Snow, Snow_ , almost as if to comfort him. It worked. Annoying as the bird could be, he did have a way of making Jon feel less alone – him and Ghost, and now the boar, whose master Borroq had been slain. In so many ways, Jon felt more kinship with these beasts than with his men.

Jon scrubbed his face and beard clean, and then a wave of exhaustion swept over him. He slunk down into the water and rested his head against the lip of the tub, laying the rag over his eyes, and for a moment, he thought he slept. Then he heard Satin arrive with what smelled like ale – but it didn’t smell like Satin. Jon took the rag away from his eyes and saw Val instead, clutching the tankard to her chest. He smiled when she pulled a chair up and sat, handing the tankard to him without a word. Jon took a long swallow, then another. Then he drained the tankard completely and handed it back to her.

“You mustn’t fall asleep in there, you know,” she said. “You’ll be dead of frostbite before you can say a prayer.” She had a scrape just over her eyebrow from the battle, which somehow made her eyes more beautiful.

“I know that,” Jon said. He didn’t know how much of him Val could see in the bath water. The light from the torch was dim, and he was just too tired to care, though he did hope she couldn’t tell he’d been weeping. He dunked the rag in the water and then smeared it with soap in order to finish washing before the water grew cold. Val put down the tankard and took the rag from him. She knelt behind him.

“Val…”

“Sit up straight,” she said.

She began to rub his shoulders in firm strokes, massaging the filth from his skin, dipping the rag and then squeezing it over him so the water ran down his back and chest. She took off her white coat to bare her arms and reached into the water deeper to clean his lower back and between his shoulder blades. He winced and sucked in a breath as she drew the rag over bad bruises and sore places. He could feel his member stirring, but he was just so sad.

“Val,” he said. “Mance is dead. I found him…Ghost found him in the moor. And the spearwives…Holly…Frenya…Myrtle…”

The movement of the rag across his back stopped, and then it was her hands he felt instead of the rag, searching over his hurting muscles… his shoulders, his neck, around the front of him to his ribs and chest. He closed his eyes and felt her cheek against his wet head, her breath against his ear. “I thought it wasn’t possible to want you more,” she whispered, her lips brushing his skin. “But when I saw you cut down your enemies…hacking them to pieces like the wolf…”

Jon turned and brought his lips to hers. It was true that he had been brutal to his enemies…his father’s enemies, his brother’s enemies, his sister’s enemies. It was them he thought of as he slashed and skewered. With every dying scream he heard, every body part he saw go flying, he felt stronger. Now he felt strong once again, as he tilted his head back and drank Val deep. She broke from him finally and stood up, removing her shirt of fur and unfastening her breeches.

“Val, I can’t. I told you,” said Jon.

“I’m not going to fight you. No refusals. Not anymore,” [6]Val said, emerging naked from her armor of furs. She bore the bruises and scrapes she’d earned in battle, but was otherwise a picture of surpassing loveliness Jon couldn’t have imagined, even though he’d seen her top half once already. Her thighs were firm and strong-looking, but the skin shone like the most delicate silk. She stepped into the tub, causing a warm greasy gush to run over the sides as she lowered herself. The way her flesh slid against him in the water made Jon breathless with desire. He put his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, clamping his lips on her throat and tasting her warm damp skin. He dragged his lips over her collarbone and then down, down to her soft lush breasts. Val let out a long sigh of pleasure when he took the nipple into his mouth and sucked hungrily. She reached down into the water to seize his member and bring it inside her. They both gasped loudly and began kissing feverishly. When they ran out of breath, they stopped and looked each other over, mouths wide with crying out. Val searched his chest and belly, hard with fighting and hunger, marred by dark bruises and shallow cuts. The scars from his murder, in time, had taken on the many shapes of the moon. Some were thin and curved like crescents, some were half-moons, still others had healed hanging open, as if waxing full. Val ran her fingers gently over each phase, as Jon gently fondled her breasts, loving the feel of her hard nipple when it struck the middle of his palm…the one that he had burned on Jeor Mormont’s lantern so long ago.

He tried to be gentle, to feel, but not grab, kiss, but not bite, to let Val ride him _slowly_. But then the past left him – the rules of honor he had learned, his childhood at Winterfell that was destroyed, his brothers and sisters. The future left too – all that kept him awake moonlit nights. The questions about the Others, their movements, their vulnerabilities, dragon glass, dragon fire, dragon queens…they disappeared. It was only her body, and his, and a mad frenzy of wanting her to get with his child. He sunk his teeth into the side of her breast and squeezed her behind moving up and down in the water – hard. _Stop… Stop… you have to stop._ He tried, but it was impossible. He came moaning, and he couldn’t bear to push her off before his seed went charging out of him. _I will not father a bastard_ , he had always told himself. The past and the future came barreling back, and Jon rested his cheek on Val’s chest and looped his arms around her against despair. In that moment he realized King had been squawking, _Stop! Stop!_ Had Jon said that aloud? No – he had only thought it.

Suddenly a shape whizzed past the window, sending a shadow flitting across the room. Then they heard a wet thud on the ground below. Val got out of the tub slowly, still panting, but now also shivering, and went for her furs. Jon stood up and gave King a long look, but the old bird just blinked stupidly at him. He threw on a tunic and opened the window, looking up to the place from whence the shape had fallen. The faces of a group of Winterfell laborers appeared above him, their eyes wild with rebuke, then softening when they recognized him. Jon looked down, and saw what remained of Ramsay Bolton – a skinny rag doll of meat with one leg and no head. _Let’s feed him to the dogs,_ he heard a voice say from above. Jon looked up again and raised a wave. The faces smiled back, and their hoarse cries echoed through the freezing air. _Hail Jon Snow. Hail the true Prince of Winterfell!_

Chapter 4: Stannis

“He’ll never leave Winterfell now,” Stannis said to Ser Davos Seaworth.

They sat in the cell that had once been occupied by Brandon Stark, looking over a map of the Free Cities and planning their next mission: to enlist Daenerys Targaryen in the fight against the Dead. Maesters Medrick and Henly had gathered the ravens back from where they had scattered after the Greyjoy invasion, and Stannis sent a letter informing Daenerys that he and his army were coming in peace and hoped for an audience. Stannis no longer expected Jon Snow to accompany them, and perhaps that was for the best, but he felt disappointed all the same.

“Perhaps once the boy Bran returns, Jon will let him handle reconstruction. Certainly Lady Sansa seems capable enough,” Davos said.

“Perhaps. Not much faith to be had in that fool husband of hers,” said Stannis.

“Well, suppose young Griff decides to make Jon Warden of the North.”

“He may overlook the fact that he’s base born so long as he doesn’t hear of his blubbing,” Stannis grumbled. Snow had become rather hysterical about the state of the old castle. It was unbecoming, even if understandable. Griff had at least left Storm’s End functional and its people mostly unharmed.

“You don’t think Jon too soft, do you?”

“Are you mad? You saw him on that battlefield…” Even his brother Robert had never been so formidable. The bastard had artfully and mercilessly sliced through every enemy he faced, taking only minor injuries himself. He moved quickly as a fox, wielding his sword like a streak of lightning.

“With him as commander,” Davos said. “The Wildlings could be very dangerous indeed. But perhaps it’s best if they stay here and wait for our return while the North rebuilds.”

“Snow must marry the princess, that’s of a certainty,” said Stannis.

“Shireen?”

“Hm. Hm. Thank you Ser Davos, it’s been a long time since I had such a good laugh.[7] No…the Wildling girl, of course.” Although the suggestion of his daughter gave him food for thought.

“Well,” Davos said. “I don’t suppose he owes his Night’s Watch vows any keeping after…you know. But will _he_ see it that way?”

Stannis suddenly felt tired almost to deliriousness. He couldn’t stop wondering where the Others were now. They had last been seen at Hard Home, not far from the Wall at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, but no reports had come to Winterfell from the Wall according to Henly and Medrick. Perhaps they were waiting for something, but what? If Davos stayed and they talked further, Stannis feared he might start raving. He needed sleep, and soon. He dismissed his knight and advisor, who bid him good night and went to his tent, in which he preferred sleeping over the charred castle. Stannis couldn’t blame him. Their first night after the siege was won, Jon Snow had been silent upon seeing the devastation of his home. His eyes seemed to go vacant, and swallow the light of the torches. When Stannis settled in to the young lord’s room, he made sure to ask Jon’s permission out of respect. Jon had been staring up at the near-full moon when he said, in a voice that sounded well past his age, _Should you leave this room, do not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle._ Then Jon met his eyes with a stare that made Stannis’s blood cold. _It’s old… and has many bad memories. **[8]**_

After Davos was gone a moment, Stannis went and stood over the bed where Bran Stark had laid unconscious and possibly dying for many weeks after falling from one of the castle towers. His own brother Renly slipped into his mind uninvited, as he often did. It was said, after Stannis and his army had been defeated in the Battle of Blackwater Bay at King’s Landing, that Renly’s shade had led the fray. Stannis would normally think such a thing nonsense, but he’d seen much by now to make him doubt his own senses. His wife Selyse and young Ser Devan had sworn to seeing Jon Snow come back to full life from a burned stinking corpse. At times, Stannis wondered if the young commander was, in fact, a ghost. Not flesh, but a specter, come to avenge his family – but of course, that was ridiculous. Snow’s breath filled the icy air with steam, like everyone else’s. He had released a stream of piss onto Ramsay’s dying head – and shades did not piss. Still, there was something unnatural about the young commander, and why shouldn’t there be? A knock on the door startled Stannis out of his thoughts.

“Lord Stannis. It’s Jon Snow,” the voice from outside the door said.

Stannis shivered and put his hand on his sword hilt, then thought better and went to answer the door. Snow stood alone, and Stannis invited him in. He was clean – newly so, and seemed in better sorts since earlier, when he had made the distressing account of Winterfell’s food supply. Color had returned to his face, and he stood straight as a sword in black leather and a new gleaming breastplate, emblazoned with two wolves facing each other.

“What is it Snow?” Stannis asked. Jon Snow’s title was a bit of a muddle, and he never seemed to mind being addressed informally.

“I must ask a favor of you, my lord. An important favor.”

“Ask then.”

“It requires absolute secrecy I’m afraid.”

Stannis wrinkled his brow. Should he be suspicious that Snow trusted him thus? Or grateful? The young man’s urgency would not wait for an answer – that he could see.

“Go on, Snow. Out with it.”

“I need you to be a witness,” Snow said quietly. Then, even quieter, “…to my marriage with Val of the Freefolk.”

Stannis turned and looked behind him to the altar in the corner, over which hung a small tapestry featuring the flaming heart of the Lord of Light.

“Well done again, Lord,” Stannis said to it.

As they walked through a softly drifting snow to the Godswood around which Winterfell was built, Jon told Stannis that Val had given herself to him only an hour previous. To protect her honor, and more importantly his, he demanded they marry. But Val insisted on keeping the marriage a secret until he could be seen to have earned her hand in the way of the Freefolk. It was Val who had suggested Stannis, who had no motivation to prevent them from marrying and no interest in double-dealing them.

“I knew you’d make no promise you wouldn’t keep, and as well,” Snow said, his footfalls as soft as his voice in the snow. “We are to marry in the tradition of the Old Gods…and you wouldn’t let your men know of your sin, would you?”

Clearly, the bastard thought himself clever. “On my end, there’s no lie, because there’s no marriage according to my god…but I’ll witness this thing – as long as you remember I did not betray your trust,” Stannis told him.

“I’ll remember more than that, my lord,” said Snow. “I owe you my home and my life.”

“I suppose you owe your gods that… and here they are.”

The Boltons had set fire to the ancient Godswood, though most of the black soot that darkened the bark of the weirwoods was covered with a crystalline layer of airy snow that sparkled in the moonlight. All the red leaves were gone, but the eerie faces carved into the trunks still grimaced at them. The Wildling princess stood under the broadest of the trees near the hot spring, clutching a cloak of sable. She looked exceedingly beautiful beneath the gnarled branches, all in white fur, her yellow braid wound around her head like a crown. Snow’s wolf stood beside her, tall as a horse in his protective stance that relaxed as soon as he glimpsed his master. Val held the cloak up when Stannis and Jon came near.

“A bride’s cloak…or what can do for one,” she said.

Snow took the fur cloak, looking a bit nonplussed. He was obviously not well-schooled in the niceties of weddings, having previously forgone any notion of marriage when he joined the Watch. Stannis unclasped his own black cloak and took it off.

“Turn around, princess,” he said, and proceeded to throw the cloak around her shoulders. In pondering the absurdity of his own being a maiden’s cloak, he suddenly missed his daughter.

“Well then,” Stannis said to Snow, before sentiment got the best of him. “Go on. Who are you and what are you to this woman?”

“I am Jon Snow of Winterfell, her commander,” said Snow.

“And you…who are you, and what are you to this man?”

Val smiled. “I am Val of the Freefolk. His counsel and his keeper.”

That was odd, but Stannis opted to continue. “And I am Stannis of the House Baratheon, lately their prince. Do you, Val of the Freefolk, accept this man?”

“I do,” Val said, looking wistfully at Snow.

“Then it is done,” Stannis said, and the wolf Ghost snuffled in approval.

He took back his cloak, and bid Jon replace it with the sable. Val pulled it over her shoulders, and a tear fell from one crystal-blue eye. The lovers kissed rather indecently for a few seconds before kneeling in front of the tree, eyes closed, heads bowed in prayer. As they prayed to the trees, the stones, the creatures of the forest, and whatever gods still held sway in the grey North, Stannis held his glove out that the white wolf might smell it. Ghost sniffed cautiously, then nuzzled his knuckles, even adding a lick of familiarity that almost made Stannis grin. Stannis allowed himself to be awed, for a moment, at the great size and splendor of the beast. Suddenly, Snow’s great black bird fluttered in and landed on one of the weirwood’s branches.

“King,” the thing squawked. “King!”

All three looked up then: the lovers and their former king. A curtain of black cloud drew itself over the waning gibbous moon above, and when it departed, they watched as a single red leaf sprouted from a branch and opened slowly, like a tiny flame against the snowfall.

[1] Weir, Peter. _Witness_ , Paramount, 1985.

[2] Fincher, David. _Fight Club_ , Fox 2000 Pictures, 1999.

[3] Benioff, David and D.B. Weiss. _Game of Thrones_ , Season 6, Episode 9: “The Battle of the Bastards,” HBO, 2016.

[4] Benioff & Weiss, GOT, “The Battle of the Bastards”.

[5] Benioff & Weiss, GOT, “The Battle of the Bastards”.

[6] Frears, Stephen. _Dangerous Liaisons_ , Lorimar Film Entertainment, 1988.

[7] Newirth, Bebe. _Cheers_ , NBC, 1986-1993. (The line is from Lilith, but I don’t know which episode.)

[8] Coppola, Francis Ford. _Bram Stoker’s Dracula_ , Columbia, 1992.


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